Agnes Elisabeth Overbeck

"E. Borisowitsch Lhwoff-Onégin "

Agnes Elisabeth Overbeck , pseudonym Baroness Ella Overbeck (called Jimmy ) and Baron Eugen Borisowitsch Lhwoff-Onégin , (born October 10, 1870 in Düsseldorf , † November 12, 1919 in Stuttgart ) was a German composer and pianist .

Life

Overbeck was a great-granddaughter of the Lübeck mayor Christian Adolph Overbeck , a great niece of the painter Friedrich Overbeck and a niece of the archaeologist Johannes Adolph Overbeck . After the parents separated, the mother moved to London with her and her siblings.

She trained at London's Royal College of Music and graduated in conducting, organ playing, piano playing and composition. She was the piano accompanist of Clara Butt and the students of Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García in London. In the 1890s she became friends with Edward Gordon Craig and wrote the incidental music for his adaptation of Alfred de Mussets On ne badine pas avec l'amour , which was performed in Uxbridge in 1894 . In 1898 she met Sinaida Hippius in Taormina and began an affair with her. With Hippius she came to St. Petersburg , where in 1902/03 he wrote stage music for the Alexandrinsky Theater (the overture Antigone , Phedre and Danse russe ). On February 21, 1904 there was a performance of their Petersburg incidental music in East Stonehouse near Plymouth , which Baroness Overbeck conducted herself.

She returned from Petersburg under the name "Baron Eugen Borisowitsch Onégin" (also "Baron Eugen Borisowitsch Lhwoff-Onégin") and stated that she was a great-nephew of the Russian Grand Duke Alexei Fyodorowitsch Lwow , composer of the Russian national anthem Bosche, Zarja chrani! ( God save the Tsar! ) To be. To what extent Overbeck was inspired to this masquerade by Clara Butt, who liked to wear men's trousers and smoke cigars, is unclear. Overbeck was responsible for the vocal training of the then young song artist and later opera singer Sigrid Onégin , who at the time was still performing under her real name Lilly Hoffmann . Overbeck also accompanied her on piano performances. Hoffmann discovered them during an audition at the Spangenberg Conservatory, the forerunner of today's Wiesbaden Music Academy. The two entered into a relationship - "the unequal couple, the almost stately seventeen-year-old who towers over the nine years older almost by a head, and the petite, almost overly delicate companion. ... She knew that people were surprised that she, who had knocked out so many suitors, now felt connected to a man ... Even though Lilly had a tender love for children from an early age ... she was not allowed to think of herself now. "Am On January 25, 1913 Overbeck married under the name of Baron Onégin Lilly Hoffmann in London. Hoffmann's mother had "not yet overcome her dislike of him ... There was only one solution here, to withdraw the girl from the mother's will ... Without notifying the mother, they leave and are secretly married in London." until her death in 1919 she lived with Hoffmann in Stuttgart, where she had an engagement at the opera and was now performing under the name Sigrid Onégin. During the First World War , Overbeck had to hide from the authorities as an alleged "Russian man" until "he" was denounced and arrested in 1916. Allegedly because of her influence, Sigrid Onégin obtained the release.

A recording of the Ave Maria composed by Overbeck and sung by Sigrid Onégin is preserved.

Works

• Eleanore. Song, words by E. Mackay. London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• [Two Songs.] London: R. Cocks & Co, 1894.

I've wept in Dreams. Words by Heine.

A slave girl's song. Words by C. Kingsley.

• Parted. Song, words by T. Hood. London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• Since my love now loves me not. [Song.] Words by Heine, translated by F. Johnson. London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• Toi. Old French poetry. [Song.] London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• The Voice of the Beloved. [Song.] Poetry ... from Marie Corelli's "Soul of Lilith". London: C. Woolhouse, [1893]
• Four lyrics. London: J. Williams 1903.

1. Les Sanglots longs. With long-drawn sobs. French words P. Verlaine, English words MC Gillington.

2. Peu de Chose. Life's a bubble. French words L. de Montenaeken, English words MC Gillington.

3. Butterflies, from J. Davidson's adaptation of F. Coppée's "Pour la Couronne".

4. Chanson d'Aspiration. Song of Aspiration. French words by E. Overbeck ... English words by MC Gillington.

• Sonata for piano and violon. London: Charles Woolhouse [o. J.]

literature

• Sophie Fuller: "Devoted Attention": Looking for Lesbian Musicians in Fin-de-Siècle Britain , in: Sophie Fuller and Lloyd Whitesell (Eds.): Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity , Urbana and Chicago 2002, pp. 79-101
• Fritz Penzoldt: Sigrid Onégin - Life and Work , Magdeburg 1939; New edition under the title: Alt-Rhapsodie , Neustadt an der Aisch 1953
• Isabel Sellheim : The family of the painter Friedrich Overbeck (1789–1869) in genealogical overviews . Neustadt an der Aisch 1989, German Family Archives Volume 104, ISBN 3-7686-5091-X , GW ISSN  0012-1266

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Fritz Penzoldt, Sigrid Onégin , Magdeburg 1939, p. 45
2. ↑ There
3. ^ Sophie Fuller: "Devoted Attention": Looking for Lesbian Musicians in Fin-de-Siecle Britain , in: Queer episodes in music and modern identity. University of Illinois Press, 2002 ISBN 9780252027406 , p. 87. Fuller, however, knows nothing about her later life and considers her a real Russian nobleman.
4. ↑ See The Strad 16 (1904), p. 375, also discussed in Musical Times . By the way, there was a real Baroness Overbeck at that time: Romaine von Overbeck, b. Goddard, the wife of Gustav Freiherr von Overbeck (1830-1894) and temporary lover of Hans von Bülow .
5. ^ Isabel Sellheim, The family of the painter Friedrich Overbeck (1789–1869) in genealogical overviews. Neustadt an der Aisch 1989, German Family Archives Volume 104, ISBN 3-7686-5091-X , GW ISSN  0012-1266 , p. 189
6. ^ Fritz Penzoldt, Sigrid Onégin , Magdeburg 1939, pp. 49f
7. ↑ The lack of a scandal and the uncritical mention of the "husband" in later reference works suggest that the marriage of convenience was not made public.
8. ^ The Wilhelm Mengelberg Society, NEWSLETTER NO. 37 : The German contralto Sigrid Onégin (1889–1943) often sang under Mengelberg. Her second husband, the German medical doctor Fritz Penzoldt, who survived her by 16 years, wrote her biography, published in Germany in 1939. He tells her life (uncommonly interesting for a musician) in the first person, as though she were writing her own story. Her first husband, who died in 1919 of a bad liver, was the Russian baron Eugen Borisowitsch Onégin, who was also her teacher & accompanist, & a.composer, whose songs she sang, one of which, Ave Maria, she recorded.